


Breathing Right

by lemurgrrrl



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:51:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7964938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemurgrrrl/pseuds/lemurgrrrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Rodney are professors at a university in New Hampshire. John knows how to swim; Rodney is learning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathing Right

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by a magazine article I read about an iconoclastic mathematician, who I thought sounded a lot like John.

John Sheppard pushed open the steam-fogged door that led to the pool, just as someone pulled it open from the other side.

“Uuurrrfff,” said the other man, the door just missing hitting him in the face.

“Oh! Sorry about that! I didn’t see you there,” John said apologetically.

“Yes yes yes,” the other man said. “A likely story. Now would you please move out of my way, I’m supposed to be somewhere and I’m already late.”

“Sorry!” John watched as the man, red-faced and dripping wet, stomped off towards the locker room. He thought he recognized him from some faculty function but couldn’t quite place the face.

*************************** 

John works at the University of New Hampshire as an assistant professor of mathematics. It is the lowest rung on the full-time academic ladder, just one step above adjunct. It is not a tenure track position. He has a contract, which is renewed on a yearly basis. This is fine with John. A year is about as much of a commitment as he wants to make.

In order to try for tenure, John would have to publish articles. John doesn’t want to publish articles. He prefers to work on long, difficult problems that take ten years to solve. The last one he solved, something to do with the distance between prime numbers, was eight years ago. He wrote about it, published an article. But one article every eight or ten years is not enough for the fast track in academia. So John lives year to year. It’s enough. It’s plenty.

Before New Hampshire there had been a Subway franchise that his friend Mitch had opened in Austin, Texas. Mitch knew that John was good with numbers, so he’d hired him to do the books. That had been fine with John. That had been plenty. Austin was warm, full of beer and good music. A person could do worse than Austin.

Before Austin there had been the whole Kabul fiasco, his stint in the military, a few years working for his father’s company. Before that graduate school, college, back all the way to kindergarten and a preternatural disposition to counting blocks instead of building with them.

These days it’s New Hampshire, pine woods and snowy fields, Robert Frost country. John keeps duck boots in the mudroom of his four-room cottage and goes out walking whenever he gets a chance. Walking gives him time to think.

He also likes to run in summer, and swim in winter. The university has a new athletic complex which includes an Olympic-sized pool, weight room, and sauna. He likes the pool because it is glass-enclosed and surrounded by deck chairs, so he can bring student work to grade and lounge in the warmth after his swim.

The pool is where he meets Rodney.

***************************    


Dr. Rodney McKay teaches astrophysics at the university, so they are both college professors, but that’s where their similarities end. In fact, their lives in Durham could not be more different. Rodney is a diva and a star—he is known for his tantrums but also for his international awards and honors, which bring reflected glory to the university and attract a high caliber of student to the university’s physics program (though Rodney denigrates them all as morons and idiots beneath his dignity to teach. Well, almost all of them. Well, okay, when he’s in a good mood they don’t totally suck, only one or two.) It is a rite of passage for grad students to be dressed down by Rodney in front of their peers—but it is also a rite of passage, for those who make it through, to share authorship with Rodney on an article in an academic journal.

And unlike John, Rodney publishes a lot of articles. And books. And tours the lecture circuit. If it weren’t for his tendency to snap at reporters, and his unwillingness to boil complex ideas down into easily digested sound bites, he’d be just as famous as Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye. That’s what he tells people, anyway.

Rodney’s manic energy is fueled by ambition and coffee, in equal parts, and he sometimes goes for days on just power bars, when he’s working on a particularly tough problem or running simulations, so it came as a surprise to no one when he fainted (“passed out,” he insisted) at a faculty tea last November. It also came as a surprise to no one when his doctor, a cheerful internist from Scotland, ordered him to improve his diet and get some exercise. Rodney was so far unwilling to let his precious, precious carbs go (he claimed to have once had a religious experience with a Boston crème donut at Dunkin’ Donuts), but he had grudgingly started doing laps at the school’s new indoor pool. Dr. Becket told him he needed to start with 15 minutes, three times a week, and increase it as he could. Rodney thought that was doable, so three times a week he packed up his swim trunks, goggles, bathing cap, earplugs, and two towels, and hiked across campus to the indoor pool.

The pool was Olympic-sized and heated, and there was both a sauna and a steam room Rodney could use after his swim. These were big draws, especially during the cold New Hampshire winter.

*************************** 

It was on one such winter day that John noticed Rodney doing laps at the pool. John had finished his own laps and was sitting in a lounge chair, grading papers, when he looked up to see the swimmer in the lane nearest him having a little trouble with his freestyle. He was splashing around a bit more than was strictly aquadynamic. When he got out and removed his goggles, John realized it was the same man he’d nearly crashed into on his way into the pool area the week before. He also remembered where he knew him from.

As Rodney approached a nearby lounge chair, John gave him a friendly smile and said, “Dr. McKay, isn’t it? Physics department?”

Rodney was wrapping himself in a towel and removing his bathing cap, water dripping onto the tile floor. He looked startled at the intrusion.

“Do I know you?”

“I’m the klutz who crashed a door into your face last week. And I also think we might’ve met once at a faculty tea. John Sheppard, math department.”

“Ah yes, the faculty tea, wonderful institution. We should throw the whole thing into the harbor in Boston.” He looked uncertainly at Sheppard’s outstretched hand. “Listen, nothing personal, but I don’t consider the gym an appropriate place for socializing. I come to swim, shvitz, and leave, as quickly as possible.”

John smirked and withdrew his hand. “Not a big fan of exercise, huh?” He glanced down at Rodney’s slightly flabby middle, hidden under a towel.

“No, but I’m even less of a fan of dying. Doctor’s orders.” He glanced at John’s papers, pencils, and pens, all strewn around his lounge chair. “I see you like to make yourself right at home.”

John shrugged. “It’s warm inside and cold outside. Nice change of scenery from my house and the coffee shop.”

Rodney’s eyes grew distant and starry. “Coffee. Yes. Gotta get some. Excuse me, Sheppard. Ten laps earns me one double espresso. Possibly a cortado. Not sure yet. I can daydream about my coffee while I’m getting rid of water weight in the sauna. See you around.”

Ten whole laps, John thought but did not say. “Yeah, see ya.” He watched as Rodney trundled off toward the locker rooms, and could not help noting to himself that, in addition to a coffee addiction and an aversion to strenuous exercise, Rodney McKay also had a very nice ass.

*************************** 

A week later, John was grading papers by the pool when Rodney came in. (Friday afternoon again—John made a mental note.) He plopped into the deep end gracelessly and started his swim. John noted that he breathed to the left side only and seemed to be doing slightly better than last week.

A few minutes later, as John was scanning through a batch of homework assignments, he felt a tall, wet presence to his left.

“Hi,” said Rodney, clutching a towel around his shoulders.

“Hi back.” John gave Rodney his friendliest smile, which almost never failed to charm the pants off its recipient.

But oh. Rodney wasn’t wearing pants.

“Do you ever actually swim here, or do you just use the space as an extension of your office?” Rodney frowned, a peculiar turning-down of one side of his mouth. Combined with a slight chin-jut, it was oddly compelling.

John kept smiling and pointed at his bathing suit. “I swam earlier. Just taking advantage of the warmth to catch up on grading homework.”

“You grade homework? Why bother with anything more than quizzes and tests?”

“How will my students know if they’re understanding concepts if I don’t check their work along the way?”

McKay looked nonplussed. “Who cares? That’s their problem. You’re just there to impart your wisdom and leave, with as little take-home work as possible.”

John smirked. “Oh really? Is that how you teach your classes? Love ’em and leave ’em?”

McKay frowned again. “Well I hardly ‘love ’em’. Haven’t you been listening?”

John was still trying to find an angle. “How many laps did you do?”

McKay did the defensive chin-jut thing again.

“Ten. I know it’s not a lot but I don’t want to do anything too drastic. Don’t want to tear a ligament or anything.”

“Oh no, you wouldn’t want that. Slow and steady wins the race.”

“Right. Wait. Why?” McKay narrowed his eyes. “How many did  _ you _ do?”

“Oh, it’s hardly a fair comparison. I’ve been swimming for years. Besides, time counts more than laps. I try to swim for 45 minutes or so each time.”

“I’m trying to get up to 30, myself. Don’t feel the need for more than that—I’ve got much better things to do with my time.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Research, of course. I plan on winning at least one Nobel Prize, preferably two, before I’m 50. So you can see my time is precious.”

“Oh yes, I can see that. Well, if you ever want some swimming tips, let me know. A more economical stroke can help you get in more laps per minute, but it can also make the time feel like it’s going faster, which is probably even more important to you.”

“Hello, I am familiar with the concept of relativity.”

John grinned. “Good to know. Kinda hard to win a Nobel without some prior knowledge.”

“Right. Well. Gotta go. Sauna and coffee await. Not together, of course. Sauna, then coffee. Though coffee in the sauna, not a bad idea. I wonder if they’d allow it…”

“Probably not…”

“Yeah. A man can dream. Anyway, thanks for the tip. See ya around.”

Rodney was gone before John realized he hadn’t actually given him any tips.

*************************** 

John’s cottage is at the edge of town, just before the town turns into woods. He has a four-wheel-drive Chevy pickup for drives to the Home Depot in Nashua or the Stop & Shop in Portsmouth, but for daily treks into town and to campus he mainly just walks. He likes to think about numbers as he walks—circling back around on a problem until the answers slot into place like the squares in a Rubik’s Cube, but his daily walks are too short for deep thinking. He saves longer, more complicated problems for his weekend walks in the woods.

One Sunday, John had his usual breakfast of oatmeal and coffee, then put on his boots and his jacket and headed out. The trees were bare so there was good visibility; nevertheless, John stuck to marked trails. He liked to be able to get lost in thought without having to worry about literally getting lost, and he never had a great sense of direction anyway. On this day he was thinking about numbers—really, really big numbers, and whether they’re divisible by anything other than one. Subconsciously he was aware that it was a clear, crisp day, blue skies, not too windy. It would probably get to 40 degrees later in the day. Twigs cracked under his boots, and the occasional crow caw-cawed overhead. The ground was still covered in a layer of snow—it hadn’t melted yet. He was aware of these things and yet not. Most of his brain was thinking about math, and when he got home an hour later he had some ideas buzzing around in his head that he was itching to write down in his notebook.

As he sat down at his desk, he noticed that he had new voicemail. When he turned on his phone he discovered it was from Rodney McKay:

“You haven’t been at the pool lately and I was wondering if you were sick or something. Also I was hoping to take you up on some swimming…tips. I’m up to 20 laps now but I can’t seem to beat the boredom of it all. Anyway, I’ll be at the pool today at 3, maybe I’ll see you. Bye.” It was short and brusque and lacking in pleasantries, with an underlying tone of insecurity and desperation—pure Rodney. John smiled as he reached for his math notebook and began to jot down ideas from his walk, while making a mental note to be at the pool at 3.

*************************** 

John arrived at the pool at 3:10—he didn’t want to seem over-eager. He’d changed into his swim trunks and had goggles, swim cap, and towel in hand. A glance at the pool confirmed Rodney McKay in the far lane. John put his towel down on a chair, quickly showered, then lowered himself into the lane beside Rodney.

The next time McKay reached his end of the pool, John tapped him on the shoulder. Rodney spluttered to the surface.

“Hey!”

“Hey yourself! A little bird told me you’d be here.”

“What little bird?” Rodney’s eyes looked puzzled behind his goggles.

John rolled his eyes. “It’s an expression.  _ You’re _ the bird.  _ You _ told me.”

“Oh yeah.” Rodney regained his composure.

“Listen,” said John, “I see you’re breathing to your left on every stroke. Do you realize you’re doing that?”

“Yeah,” said Rodney sullenly. “I just can’t seem to breathe to my right smoothly.”

John nodded. “Yeah, everyone starts out stronger on one side. What you need to do is, alternate sides. Breathe left, stroke, stroke, breathe right. It’s more efficient than breathing every other stroke, and you can practice breathing right while still having the comfort of breathing left every other stroke. And you’ll be concentrating, especially on the breathing right stroke, so the time will go faster. Try it—try it!” John smiled encouragingly.

Rodney looked doubtful but game. He lunged back into the water, breathing as John had suggested. He was not the most graceful of swimmers, but whenever he breathed right his stroke was even less graceful; his head turned too far up and his mouth gasped for air. Turning back into the water seemed to upend his entire body. On his next lap, John suggested he think of slapping his cheek to the water as he breathed—it might help his form. And Rodney was off again.

John watched for a minute and then began his own laps. Two tips was enough for one day. John had learned that as a teacher, you never wanted to overwhelm your students with too many corrections. You needed to focus on the big errors first; only after they’d improved in those areas would he offer further criticisms. Besides, mostly what people needed was practice. Practice enough—at anything—and most people would more than likely improve.

 

*************************** 

Rodney watched John finish his laps from a lounge chair, huddled under two towels. It was hard for him to take his eyes off the strong, lean body cutting through the water with minimal fuss. Each stroke seemed precisely measured to produce the maximum amount of arm extension and forward thrust. And yet they didn’t seem at all measured, just fluid and smooth, almost organic. If John had ever had trouble breathing right, it didn’t show. He looked like he’d been born in the water.

*************************** 

At the coffee shop after, Rodney wrapped his hands lovingly around a double espresso while John blew across the top of his tea.

“So I’m assuming summers on the Cape until you were sixteen, adventure camps in Costa Rica and Honduras through high school and college? Did you put in any time as a lifeguard, or did your trust fund preclude any need for actual employment?” It sounded more bitter than he’d intended.

Across the table, Sheppard grimaced and gripped his tea mug more tightly. “Yeah, I swam a lot as a kid. But it’s nothing you can’t learn as an adult, too.”

Rodney snorted. “Learn, sure. But well enough to look like Aquaman communing with fishes? I don’t think so.”

“There aren’t any fishes in the pool.”

“It was a  _ metaphor _ . Look, I’m just saying, I’ll never be so good, so natural, as you.”

“So what? Who says you have to be great at everything you do?”

Rodney looked affronted. “ _ I _ do! I’m great at everything I do, or else I don’t do it!”

“That’s no way to live. You’ll miss out on too much.”

“Oh, spare me the ‘amateurism is beautiful’ speech. Amateurism is for…amateurs.”

“Aw come on, Rodney, there must be something you like to do that you’re not that good at.”

“Yeah, there’s really not.”

“Bowling.”

“No.”

“Ice skating.”

“Oh come on, I grew up in Canada—I’m a crack ice skater.”

“Rollerskating.”

“Not a real activity.”

John rolled his eyes. “Okay, what about music? Do you play any instruments?”

Rodney stiffened. “I play the piano, and I’ll have you know I am technically excellent.” He jutted his chin out defensively.

John seemed taken aback. “Ohhh-kay.”

Rodney deflated. “When I was twelve my piano teacher told me that my piano playing was technically brilliant but had no soul. I was perfect but passionless.”

John looked like he was thinking. “But you liked playing the piano? You enjoyed it?”

Rodney shrugged. “Sure. But what was the point?” He played with his coffee cup, then said, “That was a long time ago.”

*************************** 

On the way out, John said, “Well, you don’t have to be perfect to enjoy swimming. Just keep practicing. You’ll get there.”

“Where? Where will I get?”

“You’ll get to a place where you enjoy it, even if you’re only  _ very good _ and not  _ great _ at it.”

“Hrrrmph. I doubt it.”

John lifted an eyebrow and smiled knowingly. “Trust me.”

And somehow, Rodney did.

*************************** 

Oddly enough, the answer to the problem John had been working on came to him not while he was walking but rather while he was swimming. He was cutting through the water, one arm smoothly following the other, eyes looking through goggles at the white far wall of the pool, breathing every three strokes, when it came to him.

He ran through possible equations in his head, just to make sure, as he was drying off and changing, and was so focused on what he needed to write down when he got home that he almost didn’t notice Rodney pushing open the frosted glass door to the locker room as he was exiting.

“John!”

“Oh, hey Rodney. Didn’t see you there.”

“I know, I’m practically melting away from all this swimming. I’m getting easy to miss.”

Sheppard laughed. “Nah, I’m just a bit preoccupied.”

“Love life problems?”

“Tricky math problem. Look, I gotta go. Coffee next time, I promise.”

“Okay.” As Rodney made his way toward the lockers, he realized he’d never seen Sheppard with that particular look in his eyes, abstracted yet focused, like he was concentrating really hard on something going on in a galaxy far, far away.

As often happened with Rodney, one thought led to another and he found himself wondering if John had ever seen the Star Wars movies (the original three only, of course—the prequels were an abomination), and if so, whether he’d be up for watching them again.

*************************** 

John wrote his paper in a caffeine haze fueled by the strongest tea he could find—yerba mate—over the next 72 hours and emailed an editor he knew at _The_ _Journal of Theoretical Mathematics_. The editor, Cam Mitchell, a friend of John’s from grad school, called him up immediately, excitement buzzing in his voice.

“Sheppard, do you know what this is?”

“Yeah, I think I know,” drawled Sheppard laconically.

“You’ve solved the Dex-Emmagan Conundrum. No one thought that’d be solved for at least another hundred years!”

“Well…”

“Of course it needs to be vetted first. Double- and triple-checked.”

“Of course.”

“But it looks good to me. Once it’s checked I’ll try to get it into our fall issue.” He paused. “Sorry, Shep, but that’s the best I can do.”

John smiled ruefully and rubbed the back of his neck. “No, no, I understand, the vagaries of the publishing business.”

Cam laughed. “Glad you understand. You might be surprised at how many mathematicians get annoyed by the constraints of the real world.”

“I probably wouldn’t, actually.” They chatted for a few minutes more and then hung up. John felt good, satisfied. He showered, poured himself a scotch, neat, then retired to the bedroom. He fell asleep before he was able to even take one sip of his drink.

*************************** 

When they first started meeting at the pool, Rodney would get there late, after John had already done his laps. John would watch Rodney swim and try to offer advice and encouragement. But Rodney started getting there earlier and earlier so that sometimes he’d be done swimming when John got in the pool. At first, John thought maybe he was doing it to escape John’s scrutiny.

Then one afternoon as he was swimming, arms cutting through water quickly and precisely, legs kicking powerfully, mind zoning out, lost in non-thought, he felt someone’s eyes on him, and knew it was Rodney. He wasn’t sure how he knew either thing—that someone was watching him or that it was Rodney—but he knew. And as he became more aware of his own long, lean body slicing through the water, tan skin and black swimming briefs and lean, hard muscle shimmering just beneath the sparkling surface, and as he unconsciously lengthened his body and sharpened his strokes, turning his entire body more fully right and then left, speeding up just a tiny bit but not splashing, never splashing, he thought, “oh.”

Later, at the coffee shop, John looked meaningfully at Rodney over his chai latte, and saw Rodney’s understanding. He knew that Rodney knew he knew.

That night, John took Rodney to bed for the first time.

*************************** 

John and Rodney’s after-swim coffees soon turned into dinners, which sometimes (but not always) ended with the two of them back at John’s cottage (it was cleaner than Rodney’s place, and also somehow more cozy—Rodney had hired an interior designer and then told him nothing about his own personal taste, so his house, while large and beautiful, now felt to him like a really elegant and tasteful hotel).

When the warmer weather and longer days came, they’d sometimes eat dinner outside on John’s small deck, then go for an after-dinner walk in the woods.

Summertime meant no classes to teach, and though Rodney still kept up a hectic research schedule, he sometimes accompanied John on usually futile fishing trips which were hard to see the point of.

“We almost never catch any fish. What is the point of sitting here for five, six hours at a stretch, staring at a fishing line and lake?”

“The point isn’t in the catch, Rodney. It’s in the experience.”

“The  _ experience _ is my arms are aching and I’ve got a knot in my neck from craning it to see some non-existent fish!”

“Just let go, Rodney. Just be here, right here, in the moment.”

“This is way too Zen, even for you,” Rodney grumbled. But he tried to be here, in the moment, because he knew that later John would be with him in the moment as they watched  _ Star Wars _ again for the 35 th time (it turned out John  _ had _ seen them, and he didn’t mind seeing them again), or yet another episode of  _ Star Trek: The Next Generation _ , or maybe even some movie John had picked out, in which someone reckless (usually played by Steve McQueen) went very very fast in some sort of moving vehicle.

And he knew that even later, John would be there in the moment of blisteringly hot sex, and he would make the moment last and last and last. Because, it turned out, John was skillful and generous in bed, and Rodney wanted lots and lots of those moments to happen in the future. So getting a sore ass from fishing all day really wasn’t going to kill him, in the long run.

*************************** 

Rodney kept practicing his breathing in the indoor pool. John tried to get him to go to Mendums Pond but Rodney wasn’t having any of it.

“Swim in a pond? Are you crazy? Have you ever touched the bottom of a pond? It’s disgusting. Plus all that algae floating around, to say nothing of the human waste that is NOT being neutralized by chlorine.”

“Yeah, there’s no chlorine, it’s all NATURAL!”

Rodney narrowed his eyes. “What are you, some hippy dippy  _ biologist _ or something? I’m not swimming in a pond and that’s final.” So Rodney kept swimming at the pool. John sometimes joined him, and sometimes went to the pond. He kind of  _ liked _ the feeling of squishy mud between his toes. But he kind of missed Rodney’s nagging, complaining presence, and he never went swimming by himself for more than two or three days in a row.

*************************** 

September. The weekend of SUVs, when students arrived with boxes of stuff, ferried by their parents. Some tearful goodbyes, some not so tearful. And then classes. John had his usual four classes to teach; Rodney had two classes, plus his full schedule in the lab. Sometimes he stayed late into the night, not getting back to John’s till 1 or 2am. John didn’t seem to mind. Rodney told him it was only for awhile, just until he caught up. He’d fallen behind a bit during the summer. What with all that fishing.

Rodney was spending almost every night at John’s now, even if he didn’t get home until after John was already asleep. He had started thinking of John’s cottage as more of a home than his fancy house had ever been.

Rodney was swimming twice a week now, and he’d gotten up to 40 lengths (which he’d learned was the proper terminology for one way across the pool—a “lap” was a round trip). His breathing had gotten so much better that he no longer needed ear plugs—something about the angle of his head as he turned it to breathe had shifted as he got more practice and began to breathe more efficiently. He breathed left and right interchangeably—so much so that he could barely remember a time when breathing right had been difficult.

But since keeping his mind on his breathing was no longer necessary, Rodney now allowed his mind to wander as he swam, usually late in the day as the sun struck the blue water on its way down in the sky, streaking it with shine and sparkle. Sometimes he thought about things that John had said, things that brought back childhood memories of piano lessons and recitals, of that exhilarating feeling that came when he finally figured out a difficult piece and was able to just let his fingers fly, of staying up late practicing on an electronic keyboard with headphones while the rest of his family slept—before that crushing pronouncement that had derailed his music career and killed his love of piano. That he’d  _ let _ kill his love of piano.

Sometimes he spent almost the entire swim imagining himself at the piano again, remembering the smoothness of the keys, the reach of his foot to the pedal. Sometimes he even spent some time composing tunes in his head, and jotting down notes on his smartphone when he got out, still dripping wet, not wanting to forget. It was even possible that he’d started browsing electronic keyboards on Amazon, while his students struggled through his weekly quizzes in class. He  _ might _ have even added one or two to his wishlist, in the hopes that John would happen upon it before his next birthday or Christmas.

Sometimes he and John went to the pool together, and ended up in adjacent lanes. Occasionally they’d let their hands touch while passing in opposite directions. It was kind of nice, in a not-too-gooey romantic way that Rodney wasn’t really used to yet.

All in all, things seemed to be going pretty well.

Which is why it came as such a shock when Rodney found out John’s paper had been published in  _ The Journal of Theoretical Mathematics _ , and that he’d won the Elizabeth Weir Memorial Prize. He found this out not from John but from Dr. Zelenka, a colleague in the chemistry department who was from the Czech Republic and was  _ almost _ as brilliant as Rodney. Almost but not quite, Rodney often reminded himself during rare moments of self-doubt. 

Zelenka stared at him over little wire-rimmed glasses.

“This is surprise to you, yes? Maybe I should not have said—”

“Oh shut up!” Rodney fumed, and grabbed the journal out of his hands. He wasn’t mad at Zelenka, of course—later, he’d buy him coffee and explain. Right now he needed to see John.

It was 4pm when he got to John’s cottage, and the sun was beginning to set on the warm September day. He found John inside, sitting in one of the leather armchairs, nursing a drink. He had not yet turned the lights on.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Rodney waved the journal around angrily.

John looked up at him, startled. “I…I was waiting until it came out. I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure…”

“So the whole time you were working on this problem, you didn’t tell me. You solved it and you didn’t tell me? You must’ve been excited! Why didn’t you share that with me? That’s what couples DO!”

John sighed. “I’m sorry, Rodney. I’m not very good at the whole ‘couples’ thing.” He took a chug from his whiskey glass.

“What the hell is wrong with you, anyway? You look as if your dog died.” Rodney considered. “You don’t have a dog you’ve been hiding from me, do you?”

“No, Rodney, I don’t have a dog. Although…”

“What? Although  _ what _ ?”

John took another swig. “This might be a good time to tell you that I do have a wife.”

Rodney stared.

“I just called her to tell her I’d won the Weir Prize.”

Rodney stared some more.

“She asked me if I was drunk.” John winced, then poured another couple of fingers from the bottle. “I wasn’t, but after the phone call it seemed like a good idea.”

“You have a  _ wife _ ?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“ ‘ _ Kinda’ _ ?? You do not ‘kinda’ have a wife! You either have one or you don’t have one!”

“Okay, okay. I have one. We haven’t lived together in 12 years, but we also never bothered to get divorced.”

“Why not?”

“Inertia? I’m not sure. I  _ meant _ to, I just never…needed to.”

Rodney finally felt all the adrenaline drain right out of him. He sank down on the couch. “I can’t believe I didn’t know you had a  _ wife _ . Who does that?”

“Rodney, I’m sorry. I just…I don’t do the couple thing very well. Like I said.”

Rodney looked pensive. “Do you do the couple thing better with women?”

“What? No! If anything—if anything I do it better with you than with others.”

“Because I’m a guy?”

“Because you’re you! Look…I’ve never really thought much about the guy/girl breakdown. I date people I like, and sometimes they’re women and sometimes they’re men. Although when I was in the Air Force, I had to be a bit…discreet about the men.”

“ _ Air Force _ ??”

John sighed. “Rodney, didn’t you even bother to Google me?”

Rodney was indignant. “Do you have any idea how many John Sheppards there are?”

John sighed and stood up. “Come on, Rodney. Let’s go to bed, and I’ll tell you all the secrets.”

*************************** 

Epilogue

February. Approximately one year after they first bumped into each other at the university pool, Rodney asked John to meet him at 3pm for a swim. John thought it was odd for Rodney to make such a request, though he said nothing. He and Rodney had long ago stopped coordinating trips to the pool--they saw each other enough at home, and tended to run into each other at the pool on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, when both taught early classes. 

But John had gotten used to Rodney’s odd  requests. They had gone on a hunt for Soviet-era bomb shelters just outside of Nashua that Rodney swore existed (they didn't), and they’d driven all the way to New Athos to try a new artisanal ice cream shop (it was good, but not worth the trek). This request wasn't really all that odd or difficult by comparison. 

It was 20 degrees outside, but John decided to walk over instead of drive. By the time he got to the athletic building his fingers were numb inside his thin leather gloves. Inside, he stomped the snow off his boots and blew warm air into cupped hands. Rodney wasn’t in the lobby, so John headed to the locker room to change. 

Inside the pool area, the air was warm with humidity. John slid into the water, its warmth surrounding him like a womb. He wondered absently at the Freudian metaphor as he began his laps. He still hadn’t seen Rodney, but he guessed that he’d show up eventually. After all, this had been his idea.

After his 6th or 8th lap (he’d lost count), he felt a hand tap him on the shoulder, and stood up to find Rodney waiting for him at the lip of the pool. He was holding what turned out to be underwater headphones and a waterproofed iPhone, and when John was standing Rodney put the earbuds in his ears and pressed “play.” John was too stunned/confused to do or say anything, so he just stood there at the end of the pool while Rodney inserted the earbuds, and then attached the iPhone to his left arm with a thick Velcro strap. 

Rodney was sitting there, squatting on his haunches, grinning stupidly and motioning with his hands. “Go! Swim!” So John did, and as he did the music started up in his head, mysterious and otherworldly. It was mostly piano music, but it had odd layering and spacing effects, along with occasional bells and chimes, that made it sound like it had come from another planet, and made it seem perfectly suited to underwater. (Perhaps it had come from an underwater planet, John thought bemusedly.) He swam, and as he swam he listened, getting caught up in the strange sounds and melodies that seemed to originate in his head. 

When he was done, he got out of the pool, dripping, and went over to where Rodney sat, at the far side of the room. 

“What was that?”

“Did you like it?” Rodney had an odd expression on his face that John had never seen before.

“It’s beautiful. It’s incredible. What is it?”

“It’s yours. I wrote it for you. For us. For our anniversary…”

John stared at him open-mouthed. “You  _ wrote  _ it?”

Rodney blushed. “Well, yes. And performed. I know it’s a little raw. There’s only one recording studio in this hick town, and their equipment is ridiculously out of date, but…”

But John wasn’t listening. He was grabbing Rodney by the collar and sweeping him close for a long kiss, not caring that he was getting Rodney wet everywhere, not caring that the other swimmers were watching this strange scene, not caring that he was growing hard beneath his swim trunks.

Well, maybe caring a bit about that last one. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist. 

Then he resumed kissing Rodney.

“I can’t believe you did that for me,” he said between kisses. “That is so unbelievably...hot.” 

Rodney was blushing and stammering, unable to answer.

“Come on,” John said, picking up his gym bag and grabbing Rodney’s hand. “Let’s go home.”

“But you have to change! You’ll freeze to death like that!” Rodney finally found his voice.

John paused. “Right. I’ll change. But after that,” he leaned in and whispered in Rodney’s ear, “I’m going to take you home and do unspeakable things to you.” 

Rodney looked at him with widened eyes. John thought that Rodney was probably fine with that.   
  


~end~

 

  
  
  
  



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